Why Russia Is So Fiercely Opposed To Gay People

The Russian Duma unanimously approved a law on Tuesday that
prohibits the distribution of homosexual "propaganda" to minors.

Holding gay pride events, speaking in defense of gay rights,
or equating gay and heterosexual relationships can now result in
fines of up to $31,000.

Before the vote, gay rights activists who attempted to hold a
"kiss-in" outside the Duma were pelted with eggs by Orthodox
Christian and pro-Kremlin activists. Anti-gay protesters also
gathered, with one
holding a sign that read: "Lawmakers, protect the people from
perverts!"

The argument that a young person can be "propagandized" into
turning gay may seem outdated (not to mention an overestimation
of the power of propaganda), but it's actually not out of place
in modern Russia.

"Children maimed by pedophiles jump out of windows, they take
their own lives. Pedophilia is an attempt on a child's life!"
cried one St. Petersburg lawmaker when a similar ban in that
city passed last year, seemingly confusing homosexuality and
child molestation. Madonna
was recently sued for speaking in favor of gay rights during
a St. Petersburg concert. When a 23-year-old man in Volgograd
revealed he was gay to some drinking companions last month,
they beat him, shoved beer bottles in his anus, and crushed his
head with a stone.

In the Soviet Union, homosexuality was a crime punishable by
prison and hard labor, and Stalinist anti-gay policies persisted
throughout the 60s and 70s. Gays were considered "outsiders," and
homosexuality was thought to be the domain of pedophiles and
fascists.

Measures like the propaganda ban show that many Russians still
haven't shed that view, even decades after the fall of the regime
that kept homophobia in place.

"When the Stalin anti-homosexual law was repealed in 1993, there
was no amnesty for those still sitting in prison for sodomy,"
wrote
history professor Dan Healey, an expert on homosexuality in
Russia, on Facebook.

Since the 90s, Russians have faced incredible economic turmoil, a
loss of public services in many areas, and widespread corruption
-- all factors that combine to reinforce negative stereotypes.

"To the degree that a given society that is insecure about its
political, social, economic, and uniting cultural identity, it
will mask that insecurity with a swaggering show of gendered
strength," said Yvonne Howell, a Russian professor at the
University of Richmond.

Interestingly, Russians buck a major trend in modern homophobia:
more religious countries are far more likely to be less accepting
of homosexuality. But Russia and China seem to reject both God
and gays. Russia ranks as one of the least
devout countries on earth, with only 33 percent of Russians
saying religion was very important in their daily life in
2009:

But even though Russians aren't churchgoers in the traditional
sense, most are still incredibly supportive of the Orthodox
Church, which wields power both politically, as an ally of the
Putin government, and as a symbol of national pride in much of
the population.

Indeed, many Russians today view Church affiliation as a way to
reaffirm their "Russianness," as Masha Lipman, the chair of the
Carnegie Moscow Center's Society and Regions Program, told me via
email. Roughly 80 to 90 percent of Russians identify as Orthodox
Christians, but almost none attend services even monthly.
Instead, in a 2007
(Russian) poll on the subject, the majority of respondents
said religion for them was a "national tradition" and "an
adherence to moral and ethical standards," while only 16 percent
said it was about personal salvation.

The Church's head, Patriarch Kirill, has been outspoken against
"social ills" like alternative sexual orientations.

"The church has very strong anti-gay rhetoric, its getting
stronger and stronger all the time," one
St. Petersburg gay activist told PRI. "Five years ago, they
would ignore the issue and now they say homosexuality is a sin."

It's no coincidence that the punk band Pussy Riot was sent to
jail for performing in an Orthodox church, specifically. Kirill
and other Church elders have also served as occasional Putin
campaigners, issuing bizarre declarations that mash together
Christianity and the longevity of United Russia.
Kirill has said that "liberalism will lead to legal collapse
and then the Apocalypse" and referred to Putin's presidency as "a
miracle." Archpriest Dmitry Smirnov warned once that "one needs
to remember that the first revolutionary was Satan."

Putin's government seems to cling to the age-old Russian/Soviet
idea that rulers should set the country's moral agenda. And
Russian lawmakers are more than happy to marshal the Church's
support, as well as the public's entrenched intolerance, to rally
the country's conservatives. To
Elizabeth Wood, a professor of history at MIT, the propaganda
ban shows that, "Putin and his cronies are circling the wagons,
creating a climate of us versus them."

Wood went on to say in an email:

While there is plenty of homophobia in Russia, I think the
Soviet state continued the Tsarist Orthodox state's direction
of being a moral and tutelary state -- the continuity of state
influence over moral choices never died away. Hence it is
relatively easy for the post-Soviet state to return to
Soviet-style regulation. And since the Soviet state and now,
even more, the Russian state is built on oppositions of us
versus them, it is easy for the authorities to say "we" are x,
not y. Homosexuality makes an easy "y," alas.

In some countries, such a law might seem like a sign of religious
influence run amok. But in Russia, it's part of a broader
anti-opposition push and a crackdown on a wide array of civil
liberties.

"Homophobia more often than not ... derives not from one's faith,
but from being essentially anti-liberal," Lipman said. "Russia is
an illiberal country, and Putin's government capitalizes on
illiberal sentiments, especially during the past year -- after
the Kremlin faced mass protests of the liberal minority."